What’s the Difference Between Domain and Hosting
April 19, 2024
CONSUME CREATIVELY
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Domain, hosting, and website.
Those are three words we say on an endless loop at MayeCreate. They’re incredibly intangible but they’re so important for your business. These words turn even savvy clients into a question factory…
- What even is a domain?
- How do you get one?
- How do you connect it to everything?
- And what the heck is hosting?
- Do you need it?
- How do you know which one you need?
Let’s unravel the role of domain name and domain registrar’s and then move on to decode hosting. We’ll explain the different types of hosting: shared, VPS and dedicated so you know exactly which is right for you. And explain how your website touches it all and how it all comes together.
Let’s start at the top…
What even is a domain name?
I asked Stacy, our domain name expert, and she explained:
People often refer to their domain name as their ‘web address’ or their URL, short for Uniform Resource Locator. It’s a purchasable unique string of characters (usually related to your business) that allows people to get to your website, your email and any other assets attached to the domain.
Mayecreate.com, for example, is a domain name.
Where to buy a domain name.
You can purchase domains from a company called a domain registrar. We use GoDaddy, a few others include Name.com, Network Solutions, and tucows. Different domain registrars may offer different domain extensions (like .blog, .io or .design) but the main extensions like .com, .org or .net are available at most every registrar.
🗒️NOTE: If you’re not sure how to pick the right domain name for your business check out our tips!
How does a domain work to direct your digital assets?
Your domain can direct a lot of digital business assets like your email, any subdomains, and your main website.
Stacy says to think about your domain name like a roundabout. Your domain name is in the middle of the roundabout. A thing called DNS is the map of your domain name. And it tells you which exit to get off on for what. The most common exits are:
- A Record – The A record goes to your website.
It points to an IP address. And that little IP address is what tells the Internet where to find your website. - MX Record – The MX record goes to your email.
When somebody sends you an email, the internet has to know where to send it so it is also connected to a set of letters and numbers that tells your email where to be routed to. And then it comes to your inbox.
Get this figured out BEFORE you take your site live.
It’s really important to understand the DNS roundabout BEFORE you take your website live. Or you’re gonna lose your email and everything else that your domain name touches. Yay. And it’s not a quick fix. It can take anywhere from hours to days to propagate and you won’t know you broke it until it’s too late…and all that email will be lost in cyberspace forever. Ask us how we know…
Alrighty on to a happier topic! Web hosting!!
What on earth is web hosting?
Think of web hosting like a home. It’s the spot where the DNS round about drops people off to see your site. It can be a hotel room (shared hosting), a condo (VPN) or a mansion with a swimming pool and basketball court (dedicated) depending on what type of house you need for your website.
Most businesses rent their hosting from a hosting company.
Shared Hosting = Dorm Room
Shared hosting is like a dorm room. Each room inside the dormitory facilitates hosting for another website but they all share the same resources like power, and water. It’s by far the most economical solution.
The tricky thing about shared hosting is server resources, like dorm resources, are limited. There’s only a certain amount of hot water to go around. And when the hot water is gone, it’s gone. The server only offers a certain amount of power, memory and bandwidth dedicated to hosting all of those websites. If one website experiences a spike in traffic or is hogging resources because it’s hacked all the sites on the server will feel the pinch.
We don’t suggest shared hosting beyond super small websites. If you need your site to be up and running without fail you’ll want to look for a VPS hosting provider.
VPS = Condo
VPS stands for virtual private server, most of our clients use this style of hosting. It’s like a condo in that each unit has it’s own resources – its own hot water heater and utilities but you might still be sharing a driveway with your neighbor.
A VPS has some pooled resources but the important ones are separated and allocated to each unit. Making it a more stable and ideal solution for most websites that aren’t big, bad mamajamas.
Most ecommerce sites, learning management systems, blogs and even members only sites thrive without issue in a VPS hosting environment.
Dedicated Hosting = Mansion with a Pool
If you have a busy ecommerce site, a software application or a site with a boat load of traffic, you might need more resources on the daily than a VPS hosting solution can provide. In those situations we suggest dedicated hosting.
In our example we said dedicated hosting is a mansion with a pool but really it’s whatever type of house you need. You get to decide how many resources you need. It’s designed just for you and your website.
Dedicated hosting can be expensive. But many companies allow you to flex your site into a larger account when needed. For example – a music festival site, or an online store at Christmas, might need to spring for a dedicated space for their busy season but can sustain on a VPS for the rest of the year. We manage a few sites that we transfer to a dedicated environment during their busy times of year to ensure they’re up and rolling when they’re needed most.
So in a nutshell the difference between domain and hosting is – your domain is your address and your hosting is your house.
And how does that all come together to display your website?
Your website is composed of many assets mixed together by the server and displayed for users in a browser.
It’s kind of like baking a cake.
The first step to baking a cake is to mix all the ingredients together. Once all the ingredients are blended you need heat to facilitate the chemical reaction to transform them from batter into a cake.
Think of all the assets needed to build your website, HTML, images, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, database as your ingredients. Your hosting server and the user’s browser are the oven that bakes the cake and serves it to a visitor.
When someone types your domain name in their web browser or searches for a term in Google that pulls your site up in search results, it pings the server. As the user pulls up your site the server and the browser mix the ingredients together and bake the cake.
If you have the right hosting plan and the right ingredients for your website, the cake gets baked fast and perfectly every time. When you have the wrong hosting space or ingredients your cake is going to be gross. Parts might be cooked and other parts will just be weird batter blobs.
Not ideal.
The moral of the story is – if you set up your domain name correctly and make sure you get a decent home for your website you’re ⅔ of the way to an awesome cake.
Hit us up for a 1:1 conversation about your website!
Connect with Travis Schumacher
Tranquility Internet Services
Who Manifested This Madness?
This fabulous human, that's who.
Monica Maye Pitts
Monica is the creative force and founder of MayeCreate. She has a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture with an emphasis in Economics, Education and Plant Science from the University of Missouri. Monica possesses a rare combination of design savvy and technological know-how. Her clients know this quite well. Her passion for making friends and helping businesses grow gives her the skills she needs to make sure that each client, or friend, gets the attention and service he or she deserves.
